Franz Boas, Anthropology and Human Growth

The study of human growth has been a part of anthropology since the founding of the discipline. European anthropology of the early to mid-nineteenth century was, basically, anatomy and anthropometry, the science of human body measurements. Early practitioners of American anthropology, especially Franz Boas (1858–1942), are known as much for their studies of human growth as for work in cultural studies, archaeology, or linguistics. Boas was especially interested in the changes in body size and shape following migration from Europe to the United States.

At the time of those studies, around 1910, most anthropologists and anatomists believed that stature, and other measurable dimensions of the body such as head shape, could be used as «racial» markers. The word «race» is set in inverted commas here because it refers to the scientifically discredited notion that human beings can be organized into biologically distinct groups based on phenotypes (the physical appearance and behavior of a person). According to this fallacious idea, northern European «races» were tall and had relatively long and narrow heads, while southern and eastern European races were shorter and had relatively round skulls. Boas found that, generally, the children of Italian and eastern European Jewish migrants to the United States were significantly taller and heavier than their parents. The children of the migrants even changed the shape of their heads; they grew up to have long narrow heads.

According to Boas, in the new environment of the United States, the children of recent southern European migrants grew up to look more like northern Europeans than their own parents. Boas used the changes in body size and shape to argue that environment and culture are more important than genes in determining the physical appearance of people. Boas used the concept of biological plasticity, the responsiveness of the body to environmental change, to account for the changes in size and shape.

In terms of environment, life in the United States afforded better nutrition, both in terms of the quantity and the variety of food. There were also greater opportunities for education and wage-paying labor. These nutritional and socioeconomic gains are now known to correlate with large body size. In terms of culture, especially childrearing practices, there were other changes. In much of Europe infants were usually wrapped up tightly and placed on their backs to sleep, but the American practice at the turn of the century was to place infants in the prone position. To be «modern» the European immigrant parents often adopted the American practice. One effect on the infant was a change in skull shape, since pressure applied to the back of the infant’s skull produces a rounder head, while pressure applied to the side of the skull produces a longer and narrower head. The sleeping position effect on skull shape was demonstrated in 1905 in Europe by medical doctor Gustav Adolph Walcher.

There has been lively debate about the work of Boas and his colleagues, but all agree that an interest in human growth is natural for anthropologists. This is because the way in which a human being grows is the product of an interaction between the biology of our species, the physical environment in which we live, and the social-economic-political-emotional (SEPE) environment that every human culture creates. Moreover, the basic pattern of human growth is shared by all living people. That pattern is the outcome of the four-to-seven million year evolutionary history of the hominins, living human beings and our bipedal fossil ancestors. Thus, as Boas concluded in his article The growth of children more than 130 years ago, human growth and development reflect the biocultural nature and evolutionary history of our species.

Barry Bogin is Professor Emeritus of Biological Anthropology of the School of Sport, Exercise & Health Sciences, Loughborough University (UK), William E Stirton Professor Emeritus of Anthropology of the University of Michigan-Dearborn (USA), and Member of the UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny, USA. In the Virtual Museum of Human Ecology you can visit his Room entitled «The Ages of Life», included in the Exhibition space Life cycle: Biological expression, cultural construction, and his previous Work of the month Ecology of fear in Guatemala. The 3rd edition of his book Patterns of Human Growth (Cambridge University Press) was published in 2020.

Readings 

Boas F. 1892. The growth of children. Science (New York, N.Y.), 20(516), 351–352.

Bogin B. 2020. Patterns of Human Growth (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Bogin B. 2021. Social-Economic-Political-Emotional (SEPE) factors regulate human growth. Human Biology and Public Health, 1, 1–20. 

Bogin B, Loucky J. 1997. Plasticity, political economy, and physical growth status of Guatemala Maya children living in the United States. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 102 (1), 17–32.

Boyd E. 1980. Origins of the study of human growth. Based on unfinished work left by Richard E. Scammon. (B. S. Savara & J. F. Schilke, Eds.). University of Oregon Health Sciences Center Foundation.

Gravlee C, Bernard HR, Leonard, WR 2003. Heredity, environment, and cranial form: a re-analysis of Boas’s immigrant data. American Anthropologist, 105 (1), 123–136.

Niere O, Spannemann L, Stenzel P, Bogin B, Hermanussen M, Scheffler C. 2020. Plasticity of human growth –a systematic review on psychosocial factors influencing growth. Anthropologischer Anzeiger, 20 May.

Sparks CS, Jantz RL. 2002. A reassessment of human cranial plasticity: Boas revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 99 (23), 14636–14639. 

Tanner JM. 1981. A History of the Study of Human Growth. Cambridge University Press.

Walcher G. 1905. Ueber die Entstehung von Brachy- und Dolichocephalie durch willkürliche Beinflussung des kindlichen Schadels. Zentralblatt Für Gynakologie, 29, 193–196.